Being able to close the labour and skill gap is a critical factor in sustaining growth and maximising profitability for remote operations. It is imperative that companies have the tools and skills available to unravel the complexity to FIFO management.

FIFO workforces are commonly used by large infrastructure and resource projects in remote regions including rural and offshore. These regions often don’t have adequate infrastructure or an available local workforce with the right skillset which leads to companies requiring the use of workers from interstate and sometimes overseas.

The FIFO problem is complex for many companies. It involves determining efficient ways to move people via aircraft, taking into consideration: multiple projects at various phases over multiple locations, with a dynamic workforce utilising different skillsets on a variety of roster patterns, as well as using a fleet consisting of different types and numbers of aircraft.

Often the goal with FIFO management is to determine the number, and type, of aircraft needed in order to minimise cost whilst working with the opposing objectives of ensuring: the staff arrive before the start of their shift (but not too early), depart after the end of their shift (but not too late) and keeping travel durations to acceptable lengths (to ensure low fatigue).

Analytics to break through the complexity

With this level of complexity, a traditional excel approach lacks the rigour and power to find the most efficient and effective results. As a result we’ve developed a number of different FIFO optimisers at Biarri to help ensure the best outcome for clients.

The reality is that there are often many more factors that need to be considered which complicates the problem further. Each FIFO optimisation problem often turns out to be quite different once the detail of the problem is better understood.

High Level FIFO Requirements

Some companies just want us to help them “define their fleet, or travel requirements” so they can then go out to tender (it also helps to keep the vendors honest), others actually want an operational tool. Others may be looking to see if there is a business case for upgrading an airport (e.g. if the airport is upgraded, then larger aircraft can be used which can reduce the need for bus in bus out (BIBO) which will alter their risk profile due to road km and can dramatically alter travel durations).

Specific FIFO requirements

Our clients often want different levels of detail in the solution. Some are happy with a solution that ensures adequate movements at the week level (e.g. 15 flights of aircraft type A between locations B and C per week), others want very detailed minute by minute schedules which take into account: turnaround time, time between takeoff and landing, number of aircraft gates with solutions showing exactly who is travelling on which flight and aircraft and when.

Across Multiple Projects

Our clients have also had multiple projects which are often on the go at the same time and sometimes different priorities are given to different projects. These priorities can be used to ensure that if all the people movement demands can’t be met, then the lower priority movements are less likely to be satisfied.

Optimising the time horizon

The optimisation time horizon can also vary significantly with some clients optimising over a 24 hour period (or even less if they want to re-optimise in the middle of the day due to unpredictable events such as delays due to weather) through to clients wanting higher level schedules over several years to help them make strategic decisions and determine how their fleet needs to change over time.

Understanding the constraints

Constraints such as: the maximum distance an aircraft can travel before needing to refuel, maintenance schedules and the refuelling locations themselves often also need to be considered. We’ve dealt with both fixed and rotary wing (helicopters) aircraft. Helicopters have the additional complication of sometimes having to take more fuel (and thus weight) to travel further, which results in the reduction of passengers because of the helicopter’s limited total payload capacity.

Finding the right FIFO parameters

We have outlined some of the parameters that our FIFO optimisers have considered. It is by no means comprehensive and we can always include new parameters if a different problem requires them but it gives a good understanding into the different variables that can, and should be considered.

Some of the typical inputs include:

Some of the typical outputs include:

Unravel the complexity to FIFO Management

The work we have done for companies such as Arrow, Origin, QGC, BMA, IBS, and Santos has shown us that despite having FIFO problems, they all required different approaches in order to achieve the right result.

This has demonstrated to us that when approaching a FIFO problem, where so many different variables have to be considered depending on the client, a standard approach (Commercial off the shelf product) and excel models will generally struggle with the complexity.

Having a tool built around specific variables demonstrates the benefits to bespoke solutions for FIFO problems.

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